How to Secure Nginx with SSL/TLS HTTPS Using Let’s Encrypt on Ubuntu

Enabling HTTPS on your website is crucial for security, SEO, and user trust. Thankfully, Let’s Encrypt offers free SSL/TLS certificates that are easy to set up on an Nginx server. In this tutorial, we’ll walk through how to secure your Nginx server using Let’s Encrypt on Ubuntu.

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Step 1: Check Your Website Before SSL

Before adding SSL, your website is likely still served over plain HTTP.

Example: http://jadifullstack.id

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Step 2: Install Certbot and the Nginx Plugin

Make sure your system is up to date:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx

Certbot is the tool that will communicate with Let’s Encrypt and configure Nginx automatically.

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Step 3: Request an SSL Certificate

Run the following command to request and install your SSL certificate:

sudo certbot --nginx -d jadifullstack.id

If successful, you'll see a confirmation message:

"Successfully received certificate"

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Step 4: Verify HTTPS is Working

After a successful setup, your website will now be accessible via HTTPS.

Example: https://jadifullstack.id

Check that your browser shows a secure padlock and that HTTP requests are redirected to HTTPS.

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Step 5: Enable Auto Renewal

Let’s Encrypt certificates expire every 90 days. Certbot makes it easy to auto-renew them.

You can verify the auto-renewal configuration with this command:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

To schedule auto-renewal using cron, run:

crontab -e

Then add the following line to renew the certificate daily at noon:

0 12 * * * /usr/bin/certbot renew --quiet

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Conclusion

Now your Ubuntu VPS running Nginx is secured with HTTPS using a free SSL certificate from Let’s Encrypt. This simple setup improves trust, SEO ranking, and data protection. Always monitor your certificate expiration or use Certbot's auto-renewal to avoid disruptions.

Want to take it further? Consider setting up a redirect from HTTP to HTTPS or enabling HTTP/2 for better performance!